SHERRY BEBITCH JEFFE
USC scholar and mayor's race pundit on Antonio's fizzle and how Hertzberg's school plan is only Vall
Pay a visit to one of the city's mayoral debates this year and you might notice that the crowd of challengers seeking Jim Hahn's job at City Hall are not commanding all the attention. By the end of the night, many in the pack of attending political journalists inevitably aim their microphones, notebooks, and tape-recorders toward Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, the smiling, gray-haired, senior scholar at USC's School of Policy, Planning, and Development, who is usually ready for some quick on-site analysis and historical perspective. Somebody's got to.
Aside from her teaching, Jeffe also works as a political analyst for KNBC News and has been a frequent contributor to the opinion pages at the Los Angeles Times and California Journal. She's studied local and national politics since first arriving in Los Angeles in 1969, back when traveling Sam Yorty, that symbol of the Dragnet era, was mayor and still years away from his final showdown against a victorious Tom Bradley. "Yeah, it's a different place," Jeffe says of the city now. "It's a different world."
CityBeat: How badly has Jim Hahn been hurt by the pay-to-play scandals?
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe: Well, I don't think he's been hurt severely at this point. In the L.A. Times [poll], there's some indication that voters are paying attention to the issue and that his approval rating might be suffering because of it. But it's at 50 percent, which is better than being below 50 percent. I don't think that the direct connection has been made and that's been helpful to him.
Could he have handled it differently, in terms of damage control?
He doesn't want to bring any more attention to it than he has to. And I think he's being very quiet about it except when it's brought up - he's defending himself in the debates. We haven't seen anything done in paid media about it by any of his opponents or by him. My guess is he's going to wait until his opponents strike first and then defend his record very quickly.
Back in the late-'80s, Mayor Tom Bradley had some problems, too, but he wasn't facing this caliber of opposition.
Yeah, he was involved with a bank, personally, that had business with the city and at the same time the city treasurer had to resign because of some aggressive practices in his office. It was 1989. His opposition was Nate Holden and he came very close. I think Bradley's vote might have been no more than 52 percent.
Nate Holden wasn't considered a strong candidate. If he had faced the kind of opposition that Hahn has now, it might have been a different story?
It could have been. We'll never know. You could argue that he might have taken his opposition more seriously. I don't think for a minute he thought he had a problem. But it never really totally went away. Then, coupled with the problems with regard to Rodney King [in 1992], I think the questions that were raised about Tom Bradley and his possible conflicts of interest helped persuade the mayor not to run again for reelection and he left office.
Are there many significant policy differences between the major candidates for mayor this year?
I don't see them. One would have to argue that Hertzberg is different from his opponents with regards to the breakup of the school system, but it still astonishes me that he goes around screaming, "I'm going to break up the school system!" Maybe his opponents are just too levelheaded to get involved in that. It's a spurious issue, quite frankly. [The mayor] has no direct authority. Sure, he can try to work it out of Sacramento or put a local initiative on the ballot, but I'm not really quite sure how that works under any circumstance. The school board is an independently elected entity.
I think they all would like to do something about housing. They all would like to do something about transportation, but none of them have said the obvious, which is that you're going to have to raise some taxes because there's not enough money around. And none of them are against the police. It's a matter of degree on a lot of these issues.
Is Hertzberg's call for breaking up the LAUSD a way of tapping into lingering Valley secession sentiments?
I've always believed that's a large part of it. It's sort of a code word for: I'm not against a breakup.
Has the Valley's importance grown for elections to citywide office?
Last time, it was 42 percent of the vote and that's pretty impressive. The Valley has become an important part of this race partially because Hahn's coalition consisted of the Valley and the African-American community, and the Valley was an important part of that coalition. It's a high-propensity voting area. There are two Valley candidates this time around. The fight over secession really brought the Valley around, politically, organized groups in the Valley. I think the Valley understood that it did have political clout and really used it. They didn't succeed. And there's still some anger out there because of the defeat of secession and there are issues there that must be dealt with by the candidates. I mean, none of them wants to preside over another attempt to break up the city. [laughs]
Why are there no major Republicans in this race?
Well, there hardly ever is. Riordan was an exception and you can still make the argument that his own party has said he's a Republican in name only. But the Republican electorate counts for about 20 percent of the vote and this city is perceived as a Democratic city. And how many well-known Republicans live within the boundaries of Los Angeles City proper? I don't think a whole lot.
How will Riordan's endorsement of Hertzberg help him?
It will help him in the Valley. It will help him among Republicans, to a degree. Not among conservatives. But again, he has to get word of that endorsement out. I haven't seen it yet, other than in the press. The other important thing about Riordan is his abandonment of Villaraigosa for Hertzberg, in that it's another shift of support away from Villaraigosa. He lost labor, the Democratic Party didn't endorse, Riordan jumped ship, and the perception is that Villaraigosa's campaign is stalling.
Is he no longer the main contender?
I get questions all the time about what happened to Antonio's spark. It appears to me the spark isn't there anymore. This is not the 2001 Villaraigosa campaign.
How did you react to City Controller Laura Chick's private meetings with Hahn's challengers to brief them on her investigations around pay-to-play?
That was a very foolish decision on her part. If staff members decided on their own time to support and work and help one candidate or another, that's one thing. If they were directed to do it, it's quite another.
It seems like something that would seriously damage the credibility and perceived independence of her new office.
At least the perception of independence, of course. It just was not a smart move, as far as I can tell.Published: 02/17/2005
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